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Cold Spring Village Board Adjusts Current Budget Balances in Anticipation of Next Budget Constraints
Special Board resolutions on firehouse and other Village facilities not considered
by Kevin Foley
The bumps in the present budget that threaten the balance of the upcoming budget for the new fiscal year continued to preoccupy Cold Spring Village Trustees as they heard reports from their various government departments at their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Before an audience of fifteen village residents, the trustees poked and prodded the budget for the current year looking for ways to reduce the amount of the shortfall they will have to carry into the next.
"The state standard expects us to make an assessment of what is handed off to the next budget year," said Trustee Seth Gallagher, who has championed a more disciplined appropriation and accounting process. "By my reckoning we're short $50,000 for this year," he said during the report of Village Treasurer Barbara Rudolph. Gallagher also asked Rudolph to arrange a meeting with the village's outside auditor to "help keep us on track."
The Treasurer's report was also the occasion to adopt three resolutions moving funds within the budget reflecting changing priorities. As a coda to the service he rendered the village, the trustees voted to move into general police personal expenses approximately $2,000 earmarked for employee benefits for Sergeant Darrel Burris who died in November of last year.
The trustees then moved $7,500 within the Water and Sewer budget, mostly for repairs to equipment. They then proceeded to transfer $32,000 out of the capital projects budget from the railroad underpass project, which encompasses renovation of the public restrooms and the information kiosk near the railroad tracks, among other things. They moved $25,000 into the general funds account and the other $7,000 into a general fund line for maintenance and signage.
During the otherwise routine Police Department report, read aloud by Mayor Anthony Phillips, Seth Gallagher asked how much police ticket writing, a revenue source, was down from the previous year. The Mayor said he didn't have a number but acknowledged it was "down considerably."
The Recreation Commission report, presented by Trustee John Teagle, had the Mayor admitting that he couldn't find $300 in the budget needed to complete promised repairs to the playground equipment in Tots Park. Depot Restaurant proprietor, Tom Rolston, rescued the trustees on this item declaring he would raise the money from the business community.
Amid talk of overage on the electric bill for recreation activities, the trustees voted to approve a slew of village activities at the parks under village control including baseball games and graduation parties. The trustees agreed paying the bill for treating the grass on the ball fields in April could be postponed until the next fiscal year, which begins on June 1.
Seth Gallagher reported that the Cold Spring Area Chamber of Commerce would appreciate having the trolley earlier this year to coincide with their upcoming "Treasure Hunt" event on May 17. The mayor said he would ask the County to accommodate the Chamber. In addition, Tom Rolston reported that a plan for trolley signs around the village was almost ready for consideration and that volunteers were being recruited to offer guided historical tours on one of the weekend afternoon trolley runs.
Carol Casparian, chair of the Comprehensive Special Board reported that a draft report on village streets by the Government, Infrastructure and Public Services Working Group had been presented to the trustees and was available to the public at the Village Hall and the Butterfield Library. She also asked the trustees to consider filling two vacancies on the Special Board due to resignations.
Mayor Phillips then added that he had rejected Casparian's intention to present the trustees with four Special Board resolutions that addressed the planning for a new firehouse and other village facilities as well as the village reservoir and the management of conditions around Back Brook. The Mayor said he had referred the resolutions to the Village Attorney Stephen Gaba to determine their legal standing. None of the other trustees commented. John Teagle said he appreciated the work the Special Board had done on reviewing possible village sites for a new firehouse in a recent report. He also praised Stacey Matson Zuvic and Donald McDonald for their service on the Special Board.
Mayor Phillips thanked Village Clerk Mary Saari and Marie Early for their work in securing a $23,000 grant from the Preserve America Foundation for the Grove Restoration project.
The Mayor also reported that a low bidder had been chosen for the cleanup of the old gas plant and that he was hopeful, pending state Department of Environmental Conservation review, work could begin soon so as not to interfere with the boating season. The village boat club adjoins the gas plant site.
The trustees then moved to formerly adopt some revisions of the village code which had been the subject of a public hearing on March 25.
The first eliminated village planning board authority to allow for extensions of time to begin approved projects. This would make village law consistent with county rules and it passed without comment.
The second proposed law, which requires all applicants for permits and approvals from the zoning and planning boards to post a $500 escrow for possible legal and/or consultant expenses, drew the opposition of Pamela Colangelo, a member of the Architectural Review Board, who was granted an opportunity to speak despite the closure of the public hearing on March 25.
As others had at the public hearing, Colangelo argued that many applicants to the planning and zoning boards had minor issues, such as fence construction, and that the across-the-board requirement that every applicant post a $500 escrow was unnecessarily burdensome. "It doesn't make the boards user friendly or make people want to participate in the process," she argued.
The trustees, in turn, responded that similar concerns had entered their thinking but that fairness dictated a consistent, defensible process. They then passed the law unanimously.
Seth Gallagher noted that the Earth Day presentations planned for a trustee's meeting are scheduled for the April 29 meeting not the April 22 meeting as previously reported.
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